County judge arrested on domestic violence charge; wife says he hit her until she blacked out
The wife of a judge in Tampa, Florida, has accused her husband of beating her to the point of unconsciousness.
Shirley Sanchez-Myers, the wife of Hillsborough County Judge Eric Myers, says Myers slapped and punched her in the face and pulled her hair during a fight in the couple’s home on Friday evening, the Tampa Bay Times reports.
“All of the hits to my head caused me to black out & lose consciousness,” Sanchez-Myers wrote in a petition for an order of protection against her husband, who was arrested at the courthouse early Saturday on a domestic violence charge.
When she regained consciousness, Sanchez-Myers wrote, her husband was gone.
“I woke to my daughter screaming, “Daddy, stop hitting mommy,” she wrote.
Myers, 58, could not be reached for comment by the Times. But records show he told arresting officers that he had hit his wife once in the face with his open palm and grabbed her by the hair, the newspaper reports. Sanchez-Myers also declined to speak to the Times.
The judge, who was appointed to the bench by former Gov. Jeb Bush in 2000, hears misdemeanors and traffic cases. Hillsborough Chief Judge Ronald Ficarrotta told the Times he had made no decision yet about whether Myers would be reassigned.
Myers has been ordered to stay away from his wife and 5-year-old daughter temporarily.
